Jamaica is home to may of the world's best sprinters. Kenyans run faster marathons. The Chinese team won all four gold medals in synchronized diving. Watching the 2008 Olympics you can not help but notice that athletes from certain corners of the world tend to dominate certain events.
What about child growth and development? Do children in certain parts of the world naturally grow faster during early childhood? The answer seems to be "no." Given access to the same good feeding practices, quality medical care, and other environmental conditions, children all over the world grow and develop at about the same rate from birth to age 5.
What does healthy growth look like between birth and 5 years of age? In 2006, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a brand new growth reference curve that illustrates how a normal healthy child should grow from birth to age 5, and another that illustrates the normal window periods for five key motor development milestones.
The new reference is based on findings from a study carried out between 1997 and 2003 that followed the growth and motor development milestones of more than 8500 children from 5 different countries and continents (Brazil, Ghana, India, Norway, Oman and the USA).
In each country they only included first-born, full-term infants of non-smoking mothers. Mothers in the study agreed to follow WHO recommendation to exclusively breastfeed the infants until age 6 months and to continue breastfeeding until age 2 years. They did not select families with poor economic status, history of health problems or other environmental constraints that might affect the child's growth.
So wherever you live, providing nutritious foods and a healthy environment for your children promotes normal development and enables each child to reach her natural potential. Who knows? She might even make an Olympic appearance one day!